|
I wanted to look at where it says, " Looking for THAT BLESSED HOPE, and THE GLORIOUS
APPEARING of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might
redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." , and though I don't spend a lot of time on this
subject due to its relative unimportance in relation to the other teachings of scripture, it would be wrong for me not to
completely examine this verse before I move on. (KJV)
Where this verse is in CAPS, the KJV gets it right.
They make it clear that 'That Blessed Hope' and 'The
Glorious appearing' are seen as two separate events.
Though how and in what way separate we don't know,
it could be a matter of minutes.
In a particular article I read on the web, the author
wrongly said:
"Titus 2:13 is often used by pretribulationists to
show that there is a difference (of time and objective) between what they refer to as "the Rapture" and "the Revelation of
Christ."
The "blessed hope" and the "glorious appearing" are
said to be two different events, or in effect, two distinct comings of Christ. For the pretribulationist, the "blessed hope"
is seen as the Rapture, when Christ comes (secretly) "for" the saints at the beginning of the 70th Week of Daniel while the
"glorious appearing" is seen as Christ's physical return to earth "with" His saints at the end of the 70th week of Daniel,
for the final judgment of the world and the setting up of the Millennial Kingdom on earth.
For the following reasons, this passage in Titus cannot
support the notion that there are two comings (parousia) of Christ: one for the saints, the "blessed hope" and one
for the world, "the appearing of the glory of... Christ Jesus."1. In Greek grammar, there is a rule known as Granville Sharp's
rule, which says in simplified form that if two nouns of the same case are connected by the conjunction 'and' and if the definite
article (the) is used preceding the first of the nouns and is not (necessarily) repeated before the second noun, the latter
always relates to the same person or event described by the first noun as identical or at least similar.
By using Grandville Sharp's rule in Titus 2:13, we
see that the "and" joins "the blessed hope" and "the appearing of our ... Savior, Christ Jesus". The meaning of the conjunction
"and" may be translated "even" or "also". It is therefore to be understood that the two phrases are equal in relationship.
In other words, they are not two completely different time and event references, rather, they are both speaking of an event
that has a common referent or focal point.
A literal translation of Titus 2:13 would then be:
"...while we wait for the blessed hope even [the] glorious
appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,"
" http://www.solagroup.org/articles/faqs/faq_0011.html
I am not here to show that pretribbers are right,
only what posttribbers cannot use as arguments.
Before I am done I will show that it is futile for
pretribbers or posttribbers to argue such minor issues and should rather concentrate on making sure that the pretribbers or
the posttribbers that they are teaming up, to oppose those with different end time views, actually know the Lord and know
who He is, which is the GREAT GOD AND SAVIOUR, spoken of in this same verse.
This authors conclusion on this passage is that, ' the latter always relates to the same person or event
described by the first noun as identical or at least similar. '
First, Pretribbers don't think that the blessed hope
and the glorious appearing aren't similar, just separated by time. The blessed hope is 'being gather to him' in the air and
the glorious appearing/presence (parousia) is Christ continuing his descent to the Mount of Olives, according to most Pretribbers.
(Acts 1:11; Zechariah 12-14)
However, this is not the main point.
This author says there is only one article for both
, 'hope' and 'appearing', which is not the case. There are two definite articles, one before blessed hope and one before glorious
that describes the presence/appearance.
What this guy must have done is look right before the
words hope and appearance and not right before their modifier.
Greek is not constructed the same way English is.
This is the structure in the greek: "expecting ( THE blessed hope) and (appearance
of THE glory) of THE Great God and Saviour of us Christ Jesus."
Here blessed hope has the definite article 'THE' (tnv)
before it and 'appearance of THE glory has the definite article (tns) before glory which modifies appearance/presence. So
these events are somehow separate though there could very well be similarities.
It really depends on how the translators finally choose
to rearrange this verse in english as to whether they make this one or two events.
I will talk more about this later.
While people are trying to use this as a defense of
their particular eschatological view, they miss the rest of the verse which calls Christ the Great God and Saviour, using
the same Granville Sharpe rule as mentioned in my previous message entitled, Refuting Error with 'The'.
Quickly, Christ is the Great God and Saviour because
only one definite article is used for Great God and Saviour.
This is an essential of the faith because Christ is
God and the Saviour.
It is important to note that scripture consistently
connects Christ as God with his ability to save (Saviour).
Because if Christ was less than God then his sacrifice
is not enough.
Look at cults and you will see that their distortion
and perversion of who Christ is, results in a distortion of how we are to be saved.
The late Cult Expert Walter Martin said, "The person
and the work of Christ is indeed the very foundation of Christian Faith. And if it is redefined and interpreted out of context
and therefore contrary to its Biblical content, the whole message of the Gospel is radically altered, and its value correspondingly
diminished." (The Kingdom of the Cults, Martin, pg. 335)
In scripture Christ's deity is connected with his sacrifice.
Look up: Hebrews 1:1-3 ; Colossians 1:13-20 ; Acts
20:28; Philippians 2:5-11; Revelation 1:7,8
BJ Maxwell
|
